November 10, 2011

I’ve got a new column running in today’s Star called The Muck Stops Here. It deals with, among other things: “Vallejo, which to us in the Napa Valley is like an embarrassing Schlitz-drinking cousin who lives in a hollowed-out trailer near the dump and is only meant to be visible when someone in the family marries or dies.”

Up The Valley: The muck stops here

I adore Vanity Fair magazine, not only for its essential glossy photos of George Clooney in a tux, but because it satisfies my guilty-read-at-the-beauty-parlor need to hear about royal marriages while containing enough good writing about politics and the world to make me feel like a serious person. I imagine that 1960s readers of Playboy, who bought the magazine for the “articles,” had the same feeling. And the political leanings of the VF editors are so crystal-clear, their conclusions are comfortingly predictable: all Bushes were bad, all Kennedys were magical, Mrs. Obama has nicely toned arms, etc.

So I was ill-prepared for the shock to the system delivered by Michael Lewis, author of “Moneyball,” “The Blind Side” and other excellent reads, in an article titled “California and Bust” in the November issue (online at vanityfair.com). Now I’m going to warn my gentle readers: Make sure you’ve taken your medication, put down any sharp objects and stop using the heavy machinery, because what I’m about to relay is a stunner. According to Michael Lewis, our lives depend upon local government.

As the kids say: “OMG!” And I thought city government functioned primarily to entertain us on Tuesday evening public-access television, to limit the number of faux Tuscan villas per street to four, and to perpetually postpone approval of the General Plan until the next meeting. But according to Mr. Lewis, who understands such things, the failure of the federal government to fix our economy has been passed down to the states, which have in turn filled up a spit bucket of financial woe and dumped it over the heads of county and city governments, leading to anarchy in the streets and auctions on the courthouse steps.

Well, this ought to silence those smarty-pants who disputed the theory of “trickle-down economics,” because, clearly, if those at the highest levels of the financial system, like Wall Street bankers and their business partners in Washington, D.C., can cause so much damage for prolonged periods that they themselves are in jeopardy of losing money, they will ensure that the resulting ruin is sloughed off and flows downhill to those municipalities and individuals least able to afford it.

Lewis talks specifically about Vallejo, which to us in the Napa Valley is like an embarrassing Schlitz-drinking cousin who lives in a hollowed-out trailer near the dump and is only meant to be visible when someone in the family marries or dies. But no, here in Vanity Fair are full-color glossy photos of Vallejo’s young fire chief looking concerned during training exercises, and of Vallejo’s interim city manager looking concerned in his interim office, hovering over his wood laminate desk with a large adding machine circa 1970, presumably in case he wants to add zero to zero to get his annual operating budget. He isn’t seated at his desk, since I imagine interim city managers want to be able to make a quick getaway.

The article describes the results of Vallejo’s bankruptcy: a 66 percent drop in property values, layoffs of half the firefighters and police, and a city government consisting of two people, one of whom has to lock up when the other goes to the bathroom. It reminded me of all the local services on which we depend: police, fire, water, sewer, roads, schools, and how fragile our ability is to reliably fund them in this economy. All that stands between us and disaster are our representatives and employees and volunteers in city and county government. Does this make you nervous? If not, congratulations! Your meds have kicked in. Because these folks don’t have the option of kicking the can down the road any farther. The muck stops here. Without a focused, creative and energized local government, with informed and empowered employees, we might end up like Vallejo; a cleaner, greener, nicer version of Vallejo to be sure, but one that still needs cops on the beat and water in the tap and toilets that flush with a nice swirl.

What’s next, by the way, an Architectural Digest cover story set in American Canyon? Meanwhile, I’m imagining St. Helena’s municipal moment in the Vanity Fair spotlight: a glossy photo of Mayor Britton looking concerned at the opening of a new Main Street Apple store, of planner Greg Desmond looking concerned beside an unpermitted three-story water tower at Vineyard Valley, and of Councilwoman Nevero looking cheerful while extolling the virtues of the “Great American Marketplace” outside local business liquidation sales. Come to think of it, when VF calls, perhaps we’d better tell them we’re not quite ready for our close-up.

If you’d like to read more nonsense from me on this and other topics, please check out my new blog at laurarafaty.com.

(Laura Rafaty is the owner of Pennaluna Napa Valley, a resident of St. Helena, an attorney and former theatrical producer, and an author and columnist. Read more at laurarafaty.com.)

November 8, 2011

Recently released data from the 2010 US Census reports that the number of same-sex households in NapaCounty totaled a scant 0.85%, making it the second lowest in the Bay Area, behind only Santa Clara County.

Knowing friends, neighbors and customers in the LGBT community, these numbers are clearly wrong. Apparently the census only counts those as LGBT who live together in a shared household. LGBT Americans living alone, or with a friend, or with mother, are not added to the same-sex tally by clueless census takers, even if they answer the door wearing a rainbow-colored thong or a KD Lang t-shirt or are Chaz Bono. This latest singling out of single people only fuels my fears of a national conspiracy to eliminate the chronically unmarried, or at least to isolate us in camps outside Salt Lake while Mitt Romney looks for partners for each of us so we can finally be part of a family, but don’t get me started.

Now before any sensitive LGBT readers unaccustomed to my scribblings feel their feathers ruffling, let me point out that I have lived in San Francisco and Manhattan, produced theatre, co-wrote a book with an Ethel Merman-impersonating gay therapist about the friendship between gay men and straight women, attended multiple productions of cabaret shows featuring my friends’ singer/dancer/model boyfriends, and while producing a play in San Francisco once drove a convertible in the LGBT Freedom Day Parade.

So let’s be honest: while St. Helena includes many LGBT community members, they tend to blend in here more than in some other places. In a town where standard female attire features cropped hair, unisex shorts, down vests and flip-flops, it’s hard to spot the lesbians. And I’m sure you’ll agree that flamboyantly gay men are thin on the ground here compared to, say, Greenwich Village or the Castro. This is directly attributable to one basic fact: St. Helena gay men can’t run around half-naked. In parts of San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and elsewhere, gay men, having labored at the gym and naturally wanting to display the results, can be seen wearing fewer clothes than a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model while ordering venti cappuccinos at Starbucks. Yet in St. Helena, where public drinking is not only encouraged but forms the basis of the local economy, public nakedness is legislated (along with marijuana use, but see wine and the local economy above). I have two dapper friends here who are a gay married couple, and these guys wear more clothing on their bodies in a given day than most of my Manhattan gay friends have in their entire closets. From the top of their tastefully hued high starched collars down to their patterned socks and shiny-toed shoes, only a glimpse of skin is exposed – kind of a Technicolor version of Muslim chador. I have always assumed that this was because they are both heavily tattooed, but am too polite to ask.

Back to the census, faulty counting also explains Santa Clara County’s sorry results in the same-sex category. It is frankly difficult to tell the males from the females in Silicon Valley; downright impossible in parts of Cupertino and Sunnyvale. If instead of “same-sex” the census takers were looking for sex-undetermined, or sex-never, or sex-not while-I’m-still-living-with-my-parents, then Santa Clara County would have bested the Bay Area. And in case you doubt whether Santa Clara deserves its last place finish in the same-sex household derby, note that the local sports team color is teal, which would never have been chosen by either a lesbian or a gay man, being much too flamboyant for the one and much too retro-70’s-Linda-Evans-in-gaucho-pants for the other.

No, the census has it wrong; Napa County is a well-educated, tolerant, progressive, Prop 8-defeating environment where the LGBT community is not only welcomed, it has been rendered 100% as remarkable and unremarkable as the rest of us. And that’s a statistic in which we can all take pride.